User talk:78.146.107.96
As someone who is rather fond of the William Hartnell era I remember being quite shocked when I first read that WH was antisemitic, racist, and homophonic. The only stories I could find suggesting such claims are, Nicholas Courtney, who in his audio memoirs, said that during the recording of The Daleks' Master Plan, Hartnell mentioned that an extra on the set was Jewish, Courtney's inference being that Hartnell was prejudiced, and Anneke Wills, who has said, that during filming of 'The Tenth Planet', Hartnell was apparently being racist and dead against working with Black actor Earl Cameron. While there may be some truth in these claims, now I'm just wandering if they've been wildly exaggerated. It apparently didn't occur to Courtney to consider why, if Hartnell was intolerant of the Jewish, why he didn't have any problem working with Carole Ann Ford, who was/is Jewish. Would Courtney himself have remarked on Hartnell saying "that extra is Jewish" back in 1966, or did he remain silent because that's what society was like at the time? Is it something he only thought worthy of mentioning some decades later when writing his memoirs? Was Hartnell merely a product of his time? As for Wills, it is worth remembering that she admits she wasn’t fond of working with Hartnell, yet she only joined him at the end of his run, and wasn’t with him thoughtout his tenure. Cameron says he was NOT aware at any point of any such problems with William Hartnell & says IF William was 'racist' against him he would only be very sorry about him having such issues. Additionally, Earl Cameron's character the chief ranking astronaught on the Zeus capsule in fact has NO scenes at all with The Doctor in the story - his character being up in space in a spacecraft that later explodes before it can return to Earth ....So as they had NO scenes together at all ...WOULD there have been any problems re the two actors working together? Presumably Hartnell said nothing unpleasant or brusque to him personally during the production. If Hartnell did hold such views, then he was just simply a product of an earlier generation from an earlier time in history - NOT that is any excuse of course for 'racism' but possibly it might be an 'explanation'. Hartnell did live in a generation whose only experience of foreigners in most cases was fighting them on the battlefields of World War II. I have read a story of two men who utterly HATED Germans even years after the two World Wars....something that puzzled their grandchildren (for both men were very kindly loving Grandfathers to them as kids) One of them saw action in the 'bloodbath' battle of The Somme in 1916 during The Great war (his younger brother was killed just two weeks before the Armistace in November 1918 too) , while the other later took part in Chruchill's rather ill fated British Expeditionary force in Norway in WW2...getting shot up, suffering frost bite ( the Expeditionary force were all underequipped with only summer clothing ! - sound familiar ?).... while the totally unopposed Luftwaffe happily 'picked them off' on the beaches...(not a very clever plan Winston !) This man saw pals of his SHOT by the Nazi's when they were unable to march any further due to blackened frozen feet as no prisoners were taken.... so their grandchildren could understand them (like the old Major in 'Fawlty Towers') having no time for 'Germans' later....after what they had seen - based on their own life experiences during a terrible time in history - remember Mr.Styles 'Anti Romulan' bigotry in Star Trek's classic 'Balance of Terror' episode...Styles was 'racist' due to his family having suffered losses in the earlier Earth / Romulan war...but he was shown to NOT be a bad guy in himself overall....! One of the grandfather’s children went into one of the concentration camps in WW2 after it had been 'relieved' too - he could never forgive the horrors he had witnessed either WE know you can't blame an entire country's people for wartime horrors...or later generations either of course, but IF you were caught up in a war & witnessed horrors etc, it might well alter your viewpoint no matter how illogically based on your own experiences The grandfather’s son, who became the grandchildren’s father was in the post war Royal Navy, one job they got was assisting Local Police if any UK Sailors got into bar fights etc.... he was helping in an African country once, they loaded the drunken sailors into a van & took them to Police H.Q. to 'sleep it off' in a cell before being put back onboard ship in disgrace & minus any privilges next morning...while at the Police station he saw two guys who had been brought in for killing their wives - the Police inspector showed him the long handed knives used to butcher the poor defenceless women...and the 'other instruments' the women had been horribly 'injured' with first - the women's crimes ? - NOT having prepared dinner for the two men on time after they had been out drinking.....!! The father was stunned & appalled - this was 1956 in a well known African county I won't name - the Police chief told the father & his Navy pal that this kind of murdering of women WAS COMMON by their quick to violence irate husbands...! - 'female life is especially cheap here...in fact all life is..' the Police chief guy told them The father said to his children that he NEVER considered himself racist in any way...but the barbarianism he saw in a few countries made him shocked, amazed, and led him to understand why SOME people who witnessed such things while in other countries might then become racist in their views (plenty of equally terrible crimes have been committed by whites & British criminals at home & abroad too of course) ...and NOT that any 'excuse' can be made for racism (you must never generalise of course - plenty of white people are totally as evil & barabaric - Hitler being the prime example ) but by way of an explanation of why some folk might get to take such viewpoints based on their individual own life experiences ...... Plenty of people would have equal reason for feeling an 'Anti Whites' or 'Anti Westerners' racist viewpoint too...but again that is NO excuse for being racist against ANY colour, creed, etc...! so I do wonder if William Hartnell had any earlier 'life experiences' that might have given rise to his apparent 'racist' attitude ? - bear in mind he did come from an earlier generation to the 'swinging sixties' far more cosmopolitan generation used to international travel & a more balanced viewpoint re all races etc... Sadly we know that racism is only too 'alive & well' now (look at that appalling Russian crowd trying to upset the Manchester City footballer last week !) Angry I do wonder if while we don't EXCUSE racist attitudes in people of an earlier era (where it was sadly not made "socially unacceptable" - as say something like 'smoking' too- at least we can EXPLAIN why people of Hartnell's generation might have had such attitudes....remember in the fifties the 'No Coloureds' sign was up in a zillion landladies windows acrossd London & other major UK cities - today that seems incredible...but not that long ago it was seen as quite acceptable (wrongly of course !) so for Anneke Wills to pick out William Hartnell and 'be ashamed for him' was perhaps a tad 'on her morale high horse' judging him as she was a younger 'swinging sixties chick' (by her own admission) and came from a VERY different time than Hartnell had I hasten to add I am NOT defending any racist views Hartnell might have had, but only his 'era' might well have encouraged (or at least NOT discouraged !) any such views, while the far younger Anneke was brought up in a very different Britain (on the surface at least) and she would have had a totally different & presumably far more enlightened viewpoint ....yes ? If Hartnell's racism/nationalism was limited to a couple of quiet guarded comments, then I don't see that as being a big issue because it suggests that he was tolerant enough to not be outspoken. If Hartnell had survived a few decades longer, who's to say that any guarded intolerances he may or may not have had were things he might have grown out of as society changed around him? Perhaps he was already in that process of change, hence why he didn't thrown his weight around when the people he objected to were hired? If he was in a process of change, of learning, isn't that a positive thing? Finally, it is worth bearing in mind, that more realible and huge supporting accounts have Hartnell getting along with people of races he was said to have held negative views towards. Hartnell had no problem working for Sydney Newman and Verity Lambert, both of whom were Jewish, and no problem working with Carole Ann Ford, who is also Jewish; Carole Ann Ford gets visibly upset with the accusations surrounding Hartnell saying in her time on the show he was lovely, and Verity Lambert always spoke warmly of Hartnell. William Russell & Peter Purves also both speak fondly of him (and they, along with Ford, were with him longer then Wills). Hartnell also had no problem being directed in the first ever Doctor Who story by Waris Hussein, who is Indian and gay. Hussein has said, that first impressions notwithstanding, he and Hartnell got along with each other. When he first met Hartnell, he felt terrible because he thought Hartnell was a very opinionated man and prejudiced, and he felt he was looked down upon because he was an Asian kid, although none of this was spoken between them. First impressions notwithstanding, Waris eventually got on very well with Hartnell, so much so, that Hartnell was sincerely heartbroken when Waris left the show. Hartnell also had a fondness for African American singer Paul Robeson (In his Desert Island Discs interview, Hartnell stated that Paul Robeson was his hero and described him as having a voice like crushed velvet); William Hartnell appears remarkably ‘multicultural’ and ahead of his time. In fact, that Hartnell was very warm throughout most of his run, is probably why Wills remembers Hartnell in a somewhat negative light, since she was with him at the end of his run; people who worked him with at the start and were with him longer may have forgiven him, when he went into a sour mood; people who just started working with him, probably wouldn’t have. Like I say, I don't deny the possibility that William Hartnell may have held views that today would not be tolerated, they were not unusual however (many people had similar views) and he appears to have been willing to put aside his previous prejudices to have close relationships with minority members of the cast and crew. When he grew ill at the end of his run, and his moods would change, then the grumpy side of him began to emerge, and possibly say some terrible comments. He was certainly not blindingly racist as some seem to believe. We can then understand him, we can forgive him, yet certainly not the views he occasionally espoused. Had Bill still been with us today, he would hopefully feel the same way, looking back on a different time and place from the better one we are now in.